The International House of Mojo

Those who follow Ron on Mastodon have likely seen a steady trickle of information for his upcoming RPG (more than likely named “A Little Something”). Recently, he solicited his followers’ favorite quests from other RPGs, a collection of which you can find on his blog. All this undoubtedly serves as inspiration for his new game.

Want to contribute and go down in history as someone who worked as Ron’s muse? Read the aforementioned post, then @ him with your ideas.

Tell him @mixnmojo sent you—we carry a lot of clout. (Footnote: Citation needed.).

It’s award season over at Apple again, and nominated for “Mac Game of the Year” is Return to Monkey Island. The game is up against ELEX II and Lies of P, which, let’s be honest, are fake, so consider this another win for ReMI. The official results will be released “later this month.”

Well, hell, a year has passed? Return to Monkey Island has hit its first birthday, and so we went crazy and published a newsletter looking at the timeline up to its release.

As for other celebrations, we are hearing rumblings that some official “stuff” may hit soon.

Oh, and feel free to subscribe to the newsletter! As things have gone a bit quiet, it won’t hit your inbox that often, so there’s really no reason for you not to.

Update! The official celebration begins with the ReMI crew picking their favorite parts of the game.

And so it starts, the collectibles, albeit digitally only for now.

While I’m not familiar with Qobuz, the service will make the ReMI soundtrack available for sale tomorrow. The caveats are that it is CD length and CD quality, but whatever—this is, by all measures, great news. (Ungrateful bastard as I am, I’d like to see it on vinyl, too.)

I have no idea if it’s the same album as will be included with the LRG box. Either way, this will be available tomorrow so go get ready to grab it.

Source: The Forums

Ron’s next game—presumably the one that goes by A Little Something on Wikipedia—has been revealed just a little bit more...

Sounds like it could be a fun little something to me!

Hey, the demo doesn’t lie.

To be clear, this is absolutely canon, as proven:

If you thought the infatuation wouldn’t last, well... In a sense you were right: It has turned into actual love.

Rock Paper Shotgun has released its top 100 PC games of all time and ReMI proudly occupies #85. Not bad, seeing the game hasn’t even reached a year in age.

Which is a good reminder to download the game for iOS and/or Android.

Other Mojo-related games on there: Tales From The Borderlands hits a deserved #93 and Star Wars: The Knights Of The Old Republic sits on #79. The top 50 will presumably be released soon.

Yep. It’s out. Go get it—works great.

As expected, Return to Monkey Island is set to release on iOS and Android. On July 27, you can perform yet another act of penance for that copy of The Secret of Monkey Island you pirated by tossing $10 to Apple or Google. Or both. Here’s the trailer.

And speaking of mobile: Mojo has yet again gone social, this time on Threads. That’s right. We’re all about the 'gram. For now. (Email us a Bluesky invite if you want even more of us!)

So, that’s @internationalhouseofmojo for the only social account you’ll ever need. We’ll see if it sticks.

The best thing to happen to Mojo is the rise of YouTube interviews: Others create content; we reap the benefits. In this case:

We’re there tomorrow.

If you’re anything like me, you may have wondered what the logic behind LeChuck’s appearances in the underground tunnels is. (That is in LeChuck’s Revenge, natch.) Now, Ron has kicked Grumpy Gamer back into action and shed some light on it all:

A quick look at the code gives proof that you aren’t going crazy and there are reasons for LeChuck’s lengthy absences.

I’m one of those crazy people who like to take my time with a game, but I’ll still give budding speed runners a piece of advice: Use keyboard shortcuts—“P” for “pick up,” “U” for “use,” etc.—and you’ll save valuable seconds. The odds of beating LeChuck’s voodoo doll increase significantly.

We’re all getting older, as proven by the number of staffers and readers that have spawned offspring. And, for those with younger kids, finding a way to lull them to sleep can seem like a downright chore. Thankfully, an... artist?... called Lullaby Legends has taken it into their own hands to alleviate the problem with some unexpected tracks.

That is indeed the Scurvy Island theme and a strange version of “The SCUMM Bar” is available, too.

I have a hard time imagining this being properly licensed music—copyright Paul Robert Martin Leonard True?—so enjoy it while you can.

I’ll keep this short so I don’t interrupt the flood of Indy coverage: You now have yet another way to own Return to Monkey Island, this time from the Epic Games Store. It’s available for a cent cheaper than $17.50.

Back to Indy!

Not literally (that we know of), but he is once again doing a fireside chat, this time for “LudoNarraCon 2023”:

I’m not seeing the actual date for Ron’s talk on the official page, but going by his Mastodon post, it will take place on the opening day. Presumably, this is what the meaning of “May the 4th be with you” is.

Here’s one we forgot to mention, at least until we dropped it in The Adventurer: A remaster of the Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo soundtrack (Footnote: Incorrectly we put “world” in the newsletter—Putt-Putt never reached those types of lofty achievements.) has hit Bandcamp. Courtesy of The Fat Man and Team Fat, $10 gets you both MP3 and FLAC downloads which is a good deal by most any definition. Run and buy.

That’s Bajakian, Land, and McConnell to you.

We knew it existed, and after we dropped some vague threats in the previous GDC video thread, Sushi intervened, and gave us the link to the Monkey Island composers GDC talk: Find it here—I’ll skip the video embed this time, as it doesn’t have much of a shelf life.

This is the good stuff, but you already knew that, and it’s one facet of Return to Monkey Island we haven’t heard too many details about. Until now. And there are tons of 'em. Run and read! (And thanks, Sushi!)

Mojo asked and GDC answered: Jenn Sandercock’s ReMI has made its way online. And to save you the click, here it is.

I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but will very much carve out the hour to do so ASAP. As should you—what else do you really have going on if you’re reading this?

Update: After clearly exceeding their streaming limits from hoards of Mojo views, the embedded video looks to have been blocked from outside GDC’s site. So, go view it there.

Sure, the announcement anniversary just passed, and the seven-month anniversary of its release is two weeks away. So, consider this either a dessert or an amuse bouche: “Remi Returns to Return to Monkey Island,” a look back at the game now that the new-car smell has worn off.

And, there isn’t much more to say about it. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you won’t. Either way: read it! You know you want to!

Twenty-four hours remain for you to decide whether you want to have electricity this month or own any/all of these from your rapacious friends at Limited Run Games:

Meanwhile, folks on the forums are reminiscing that it was a year ago today that Ron announced a new Monkey Island game as a vicious April Fools joke. Still can’t believe some of you fell for that. There’s a sucker born every minute, I suppose.

Source: Limited Run Games

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the best Aprils non-fools schtick in recent memory, we’re seeing some more “lessons learned”-type information making its way to the public. Take producer Jenn Sandercock’s recent GDC talk, The Production Secrets of 'Return to Monkey Island', from which you can download the presentation deck. I haven’t read it myself, but couldn’t help but notice this tidbit while skimming through it.

According to one David Fox, Return’s musicians also held a talk called Thirty Years Later: Scoring 'Return to Monkey Island'. We haven’t gotten our grubby hands or eyes on that one yet—if you can help us track it down, we’ll pay in hugs and love. Not a bad little soundtrack, that.

Download PDF

• RTMI_ProductionSecrets_GDC2023.pdf From jennsand.com